


love me not

by kuroshironimu



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Pre-Fall of Overwatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 23:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11367825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroshironimu/pseuds/kuroshironimu
Summary: Flowers blossomed in Jack Morrison's lungs, thorns and petals making its way to suffocate the life out of him.In his heart, he still dreamed of Gabriel Reyes loving him like he used to.





	love me not

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'ed and word vomit. basically.
> 
> not relevant but [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bSwwck5egM) is my song recommendation. at least, that's the song i put on loop when writing this. cheers.

Jack woke up to a coughing fit in the middle of the night, and two pink petals on his pillow.

He thought it wasn’t something suspicious, maybe it was only his mind playing tricks on him or the younger cadets trying to get on his nerves (which is impossible, because his room was off-limited for the most of them) or the petal came from outside his window, carried by the night wind (never mind that his bunker was closed off, and there were not much flowers in Gibraltar to begin with). He threw the petal in the trash can, prepared to work and blamed the suffocation in his lungs on the climate.

He coughed once more during a meeting, when his eyes met Gabriel’s at the far end of the table, and another petal was laying on his hand.

Hanahaki disease, Angela said to him after Amari rushed him to the infirmary shortly after the meeting. A disease where flower blooms in his chest, slowly eating out his lungs with petals and prickling thorns until the infected suffocated from the lack of air. A disease caused by one-sided love. A disease that can only be cured if the infected had their love reciprocated, or undergo a method of surgery to remove the flowers—and their ability to feel, if any.

Jack didn’t believe it. He shook his head, dizzy, even when Angela stared at him in something close to pity or how she squeezed his hand in faint reassurance. _Hanahaki._ He knew it alright, heard it from telltale whispers and tragic stories he didn’t really bother to listen. The feeling of one-sided love that could kill you—Jack knew it all, but it couldn’t be happening to him.

There’s an engagement ring on his finger, carved with Gabriel’s name in it.

_This wasn’t how it supposed to be._

 

 

 

 

“You look kind of pale,” Gabriel said when Jack met him in the commander office. Gabriel looked concerned, his brows furrowed and his gloveless hand went up to feel Jack’s cheeks, eyes scanning through and thorough with something inside that felt almost loving. But the blossoming rose in Jack’s chest said otherwise, and he swallowed another cough before another petal rush out from his lips. “What did Ziegler say?”

“Just feeling a bit under the weather,” Jack replied, smiling in the way Gabriel would say, his _charming, goody two shoes way._ “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Gabriel scoffed, his fingers scratching the back of Jack’s head affectionately. The small gesture Gabriel did to him like this made him happy most of the time, but now it constricted his lungs even more. “What’s the use of those superhuman injections if you can still catch a cold? Maybe it’s even worse than just a common flu.”

Jack laughed, pushing Gabriel’s chest playfully. “No, Gabe. I think I’m just overworking, so it’s fine—really,” he added when Gabriel’s frown deepened, “no words need to go out. Just take me for a nice walk; that’ll do wonder for my health.”

It was forever since they had times together, and Jack almost forgot how it felt like to sleep under Gabriel’s arms. His sheet used to smell like the older male, and now it just reeked of hygiene products and something artificial that remind him of the lab he used to be in. Gabriel was busy with Blackwatch, and so did Jack with the already fragile Overwatch—they had no time for each other, and it was nothing short of miracle that Gabriel showed up in his office to show his concern. Jack hoped his disease was a mistake, something fleeting that maybe Gabriel just forgot how to love him and when they reunited, the flowers will go away.

Jack was nothing but an optimist.

Gabriel sighed, his hand retreated back from Jack’s head as he rubbed his neck. “I don’t know, Jack,” he mulled, looking at the ceiling-high windows of the office with another sigh, “we had our hands full these days, you and I. There’s still that Shimada kid that I have to worry about, not to mention McCree’s mission that went awry. You also had that press conference around Europe, right? For like, what, two weeks? I’m not sure we can have some free time with all those mess.”

His lungs screamed aloud until Jack coughed into his hand, feeling the petal on his tongue before he swallowed it back. It was more painful that he thought it would be.

His expression seemed to give it away, because Gabriel heaved another sigh but he ended it with a little smile. “Alright—okay. We have a nice walk and dinner tomorrow, does that sound okay?”

It wasn’t affectionate, but something close to pity just like what Angela did to him in the infirmary. But Jack loved to fool himself, so he smiled and nodded.

Jack also pretended that he didn’t realize Gabriel’s ring, carved with his name on it, wasn’t on his finger.

 

 

 

 

Their engagement was not something you’d expected out of love novels, and that was a way to say Gabriel’s proposal wasn’t even close to being romantic. Sometimes Jack wondered if he even tried, and he mentioned it once jokingly in which the older male responded with a huff and challenged him to do better.

Jack remembered the time when he was still a fresh, brand new Strike Commander of Overwatch, and the base was still brimming with hope and positivity and new cadets running back and forth with pride written all over their faces. He knew how much Gabriel wanted to be in his position, how the title fit him better than Jack could ever be, and the guilt of it still weighed him—especially when cadets ran to meet him when he walk by, maybe hold a chance to shake his hand, and mentioned ‘how wonderful he was on the battlefield.’ It left something bitter on his tongue.

“I wish I could just give this up to you,” Jack said one morning during breakfast hour, eyes bleary and hands shaking from the lack of sleep. Overwatch was still walking on baby steps, war didn’t end in one single night and even though many battles had been won, there were too many losses to count as well. Jack rubbed his forehead, the headache kept coming back and he wished he could see Ziegler before he started his shift. “You deserve it more than me.”

“Well, those higher ups don’t think that way,” Gabriel shrugged, and he quickly apologized when Jack’s face looked like he kicked a puppy. “I’m alright with it now, Jack, trust me. I believe in you, and it’s a good thing those people feel the same.”

Jack dropped his head on the table, bang it a couple of times for good measures, and groaned when Gabriel stopped him from it. “I still feel… inadequate,” he murmured, sighing before looking up at Gabriel. “How can you trust me anyway? What if I let you all down and get this place blow up?”

“Have some faith in yourself,” Gabriel said, flicking his fingers on Jack’s forehead. “Maybe I should say it numerous times so you’ll finally get it through your thick skull. I trust you, Jack Morrison, to be the Strike Commander of Overwatch. Hell, I trust you to be my husband, even.”

There was some pause where Jack, in all his sleep deprivation, trying to comprehend Gabriel’s words while the older male sip on his coffee.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I catch the last part.”

“I trust you so much, as a Strike Commander or even my husband.”

At that, Jack sat up straight. Gabriel didn’t look at him, pretending to be interested by some cadets trying to fight over the last piece of bread at the far end of the cafeteria while sipping at his coffee, but Jack realized the small blush creeping from his neck to his cheeks that he’s nervous, and he’s not that good at hiding it.

“Gabriel Reyes, are you proposing to me?” he teased.

Gabriel huffed. “Damn straight I did. Brought you rings and all, too.”

He really did; took out a small black box and put it in front of Jack to see. Gabriel turned around to finally look at Jack, eyes set straight but the twitches on his fidgeting fingers when he opened the small box betrayed his composure. He showed Jack the ring, gold and simple in design with no jewel but no less beautiful, and Jack caught the name ‘Gabriel Reyes’ engraved in the inner circle. He wanted to laugh in disbelief, and how ridiculous this whole setting was.

Gabriel Reyes proposed to him in the middle of bustling cafeteria, with the most unromantic words Jack had ever heard his whole life.

“Jack Morrison, do you want to change your name to Jack Morrison-Reyes?”

 

 

 

 

“Gabriel Reyes-Morrison has a nice ring to it, too.”

 

 

 

 

Jack was in Spain when the disease grew worse. He was dry-heaving on the toilet just thirty minutes before the press conference started, bile and petals mixing in the bowl and taste of iron lingered on his tongue. The petals were red and pink, something Jack would call as beautiful but not when they were trying to kill him. Angela sat behind him, rubbing soothing hand on his back and Jack felt awful. Angela shouldn’t see him in this state.

“Jack, I think,” the words caught in her throat, and Jack didn’t need to listen to what she would say because he knew anyway. “I think you need the surgery.”

It was hopeless, they both realized. Angela, in all her medical glory, couldn’t do anything else to soothe the pain that was suffocating Jack. Her fingers clenched around Jack’s back, trying to suppress the sob from escaping her lips. No one knew the disease plaguing Jack’s chest but Angela, and that’s because she was restricted with patient’s confidentiality or else she would run head first to Amari. She was young, so full of hope, and seeing Jack Morrison dying by his lost love was more unbearable than she ever truly realized. The burden probably was too painful for her, Jack thought, and he shouldn’t have made her go through all this.

The surgery—what of it? He would lose the feeling, not only for Gabriel but for anyone, for the rest of his life. Jack was an optimist; he always wondered about the small home they would buy after they retired from the military, preferably on the countryside, he wanted to adopt one or two dogs to keep them company, and maybe a son or a daughter to brighter their lives up. They would sit on the front porch, listening to the cicadas singing in the summer, holding hands while listening to some old music Reinhardt used to listen. They would be happy, content, and in love. But if Jack wait until the flower killed him, then the dream was all for nothing.

But then again, did Gabriel even want the same future with Jack?

Wasn’t that the reason why Jack was dying, anyway?

 

 

 

 

Jack was in Zurich when the incident happened.

The explosion came rapidly before Jack could even register anything, the shockwave and crumbling buildings were not enough sign for him to find an escape. In his horizon, he found Gabriel and his lungs screamed, petals rushing out of his mouth before he could even cover his cough. Red roses mixed with blood dripping from his mouth, pooling underneath his feet. He cried, felt the thorn jabbing at his throat mercilessly from the inside, and he wanted to reach out to Gabriel. Jack wanted to plea for help, wanted to cry out for the love of his life. He heaved another coughing fit, falling on his knees onto the ground as the roses petals keep slipping from his mouth, along with blood and vomit.

Jack was in tears, sobbing as he pleaded for the pain to stop. He hit his chest multiple times, chocking his own throat to stop the flowers from growing into a full bloom, but there was no stopping it. The thorns, the petals, the beautiful rose Gabriel once handed to him on their first date to New York, was still killing him.

Jack saw Gabriel on his vision, face apathetic as he moved toward Jack with guns on his hands, and Jack wondered—if Gabriel knew it, all along.

 

 

 

 

_“Right here, Jack.”_

The voice was too familiar in his head, but the gunshot on his back and the pain brought him to reality. He turned around to see the cloaked figure, a pale white mask covering his face, but Jack knew the voice all along. Just like how Gabriel recognized him, without the need to take off his visor. The last time Jack saw Gabriel, his lungs were full of petals and blood and the suffocation was perhaps the last trigger that almost kill him. The last time, Jack’s heart in all his naivety was filled with hope and love for Gabriel Reyes.

 

 

This time, his chest was hollow.

**Author's Note:**

> this is written because i love 1) to die and 2) suffering jack morrison, so are you people who click this story. shame on you and your cows.


End file.
